Case Studies Government

It takes one to know one, as kids on the playground often cry. But for civil engineering firm, ADR & Associates, the phrase isn’t derisive and, in fact, it describes the firm’s relationship to general contractors. Founders, civil engineering students and business partners, Doug Mill and Russ Krock, started the firm in Newark, Ohio, in […]

As the general contracting company’s history shows, Paige Industrial Services Inc. is not afraid to try something new. When President Devroux Paige founded the company in 1990, it was a residential cleaning services company called Paige Cleaning Services. After a few years, the Washington D.C.-based company evolved into a commercial and industrial janitorial services provider. […]

When Heath Taylor started Arco Excavation & Paving Inc. with partner Brian Adams in 2004, he only had a dump truck, trailer and a D3 dozer to his name. So for the first three years, the excavating contracting company focused on building up its reputation, completing earthwork and utilities for commercial projects in northwest Arkansas. […]

In the winter of 1999, Jason Edens, an environmental graduate student at Bemidji State University, faced a terrifying prospect: he couldn’t afford to buy heating fuel. That would be bad news for anyone living in frigid northern Minnesota, where winter temperatures regularly fall into the single digits and below. And it’s not uncommon, as over […]

When it comes to air and water filtration, sometimes the hardest thing may be knowing your choices, says Dave Downing. As the founder of Dave Downing & Associates (DDA), an air and water filtration supply company based in Phoenix, Arizona, he would know. His company distributes and installs myriad products that include air filters, air […]

According to George Pacheco, president of Pacheco Brothers Gardening Inc., nothing is as dangerous to athletes as sliding over a sunflower seed stuck in synthetic turf. Not only does it cut “like glass,” but it can cause infections. Sunflower seeds aren’t the only thing hiding in the plastic turf. “On a regular soccer or football […]

Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call. So goes Gordon Lightfoot’s old song, the meaning of which may have hit home—literally—for the folks in Minot, North Dakota, in May 2011 when Mayer Electric Inc. lent its services following flood conditions. Normally a much cherished season in the upper plains, the […]

When the city of Pasadena, California, or one of the nearby communities, tinkers with its zoning code or elects a new Planning Commission, principals Rob Tyler and Javier Gonzalez pay attention. The firm they co-founded more than 30 years ago, Tyler Gonzalez Architects, has a vested interest in reading the pulse of the community. Much […]

Alexis Peck knows that with tighter budgets, shorter timelines and the occasional political situation to weather over, nothing in government projects is ever set in stone. As vice president of design for Peck Peck & Associates (PP&A), an architecture firm based in Woodbridge, Virginia, she has seen budgets and schedules change overnight with the signing […]

Before 2007, most general contractors self-performed at least a few different trades. This involved hiring a larger staff of skilled workers and giving them work through busy and lean periods. But after the financial crisis in 2008 killed projects and forced thousands of workers out of the industry, many contractors started subbing out almost all […]